Jul 2007

The Shanghai Museum is a wonderful archive of art and culture with items dating back to 6000 BC and perhaps earlier.

I found the pottery exhibit especially interesting given the many parallels with dad's work.

China potters are proud that in English we call fine porcelain china. Doing so is a recognition of the impressive abilities of ancient potters in this part of the world. The Shanghai Museum has many examples of fine porcelain, as well as other types of pottery created in the different regions of this vast country.

When I was young, dad experimented with the blending of different colored clays that when rolled together formed agate like patterns. Mom would do the same when making beads out of femo. Rolled out snakes of different colors would be combined a larger roll. The roll would then be sliced like a refrigerator cookie and applied to a pot or bead.

The Chinese used a similar method to create ceramic pots that resembled carved wood. The example below is about the size of a small sugar bowl. What appears to be wood grains are actually thin layers of brown and tan colored clays.

I always assumed celadon only referred to the light green color dad uses on some of his pots, but it applies to a range of pale greens and yellows as seen in the picture below.

Ge Ware is characterized by crazing (glaze cracking). The jinsitienxian (gold thread, iron wire) style of Ge Ware has wider black cracks and thinner yellow cracks.

The oil drop glaze is very similar to a black glaze dad refers to as Ten-moku. If I recall correctly, the key ingredient for dad’s Ten-moku glaze was obsidian. I wonder if the Chinese had a similar methodology.

One of the most difficult high fire glazes to achieve is the copper red. In China they call it Jiangdouhong, which literally means “cow-pea red”. Here are a few examples of some reds made during the Qing dynasty.

Similar reds can be found earlier during the Ming dynasty, though these have a slight pinkish hue to them.

Equally striking was this yellow glaze, also from the Ming dynasty.

Towards the end of the exhibit there was a blue platter that reminded me a lot of the dark blue glaze dad uses for many of his pots. If you look closely you can make out the intricate designs, including a ferocious dragon.

Finally there were a few unusual pieces of note. These four vases melded together are odd in shape though the blue and white glaze is typical of china porcelain.

In addition to utilitarian pieces some interesting figures. This old man smoking a pipe caught my attention.

The entire exhibit was a treasure trove following the history of pottery in china through the ages. For an album view of these and other pictures check out the link below.

http://picasaweb.google.com/towangle/ChinesePottery

After a week here and frustrated with my inability to make much progress with the language, I put new energy into finding a local Chinese person with which to do a language exchange. Soon I stumbled across a website (www.expats.com) that allowed free classified postings. There were several language exchange requests posted from all over the world (many in Dubai). I gave it a shot and by Sunday night I had been emailed by a young Chinese mechanical engineer, who uses the English name Ryan, on summer holiday and looking to improve his English.

Ryan is 21 and in his last year of university. He lives with his mom and grandmother on the Puxi side of town, just north of the East China University of Politics and Law (ECUPL) where Stacy has classes. Though he is an only child he has a few cousins close by who he refers to as sisters. Dad hasn’t been in the picture for a while. Fortunately for me Ryan has been studying English for nearly 10-years and was more than able to negotiate a time and place to meet in English. Through a series of cell phone text messages we were able to connect on the ECUPL campus early Monday morning.

We met up three times last week for a few hours each time in the afternoon. While I got some much needed language practice, my interest in learning more about the culture and politics of China and Shanghai tended to trump my language practice. When my brain tired of trying to hear and repeat the different tones, I fell back to English and explored the details of Chinese life through his eyes.

joe
Often we were joined by Stacy or one of her classmates on break (or skipping class to avoid an uninteresting lecture). We hit on topics like food, health care, news coverage, standard of living, minimum wage, pollution of waterways, using roundabouts instead of signalized intersections, credit cards, saving money, houses vs. apartments, pirated software, earthquakes, the apparent rudeness of Chinese people, and frequently his dissatisfaction with life in Shanghai / China.

Like many people in their early 20’s in both China and the US, Ryan is disillusioned with government and media. Coming of age in a world filled with hypocrisies and injustice is enough to make anyone wish for the greener grass that must exist outside.

Surely more equitable places to live than Shanghai exist, but the discouragement I sense in Ryan could be found anywhere in the world. As a future mechanical engineer, he will be better off than most. Still, the idea of joining the rat race and being stuck in a position in which he has little control over the political and economic systems in which he must subsist is understandably disheartening.

I am curious to see how our relationship develops over my remaining two weeks here in Shanghai. As time allows, I will explore some of the conversations mentioned above in future posts.